Is Eastern Europe the most Western place in the West?

Giulio Meotti, writing at the Gatestone Institute's website, says it probably was no coincidence that Trump gave his speech in Poland:

There has been a growing tendency of Visegrad [Poland, Czech Republic, Slovakia, Hungary] leaders to depict Islam as a civilizational threatto Christian Europe. If, in Western Europe, Christianity has been dramatically cast aside by public opinion and severely restricted by EU official rules, in Eastern Europe new polls revealthat Christianity is as robust and patriotic as ever. That is why Trump called Poland "the faithful nation". That is why US Catholic magazines are openly asking if there is a "Christian reawakening" in Eastern Europe. Slovakia approved a law to prevent Islam from becoming an official state religion.

These Central- and Eastern European countries know that Western Europe's multiculturalism has been a recipe for terror attacks, for a start. As Ed West of The Spectator noted:

"Not all of Europe, of course. Central Europe, chiefly Poland, Hungary and the Czech Republic, remain largely safe from the terror threat, despite the former in particular being a Nato player in the Middle East. It is precisely because the reasons for this are so obvious that they cannot be mentioned. Poland is 0.1 percent Muslim, most of whom are from a long-settled Tartar community, Britain is 5 percent, France 9 percent and Brussels 25 percent, and those numbers are growing".

What is presumably "obvious" here is that Poland and Hungary are not hit by Islamic terror attacks because they have very few Muslims, while Belgium and UK it is the reverse. Europe would probably have been safer if it had followed Eastern Europe's example.

Eastern Europe not only shows a greater understanding of Western culture than Western Europe does; these Eastern countries have also been far more generous to NATO, the bulwark of their independence and security. Culture and security go hand-in-hand: if you take your own culture and civilization seriously, you will be ready to defend them.

A brief look at the NATO's members' military spending as a percentage of GDP shows that Poland meets the 2% target, unlike all the Western European countries. Only five of NATO's 28 members -- the U.S., Greece, Poland, Estonia and the U.K. -- meet the 2% target. Where is France? And Belgium? And Germany? And The Netherlands?

"Unlike most of its NATO and European peers," Agnia Grigas, a senior fellow at the Atlantic Council, explained, "Poland has for the past two decades consistently viewed defense as a priority issue, and as a result, has been slowly but steadily emerging as the bedrock of European security". Poland -- unlike Belgium, Italy and other European countries -- is not a "free rider" but a trustworthy partner to its US ally. Poland showed loyal support to the United States both in Afghanistan and Iraq, where its troops fought the Taliban and helped to topple Saddam Hussein.

It's one thing to evolve and advance, which Western nations have shown the world how to do, but it's of supreme importance for those of us in the West to remember our identity, what it consists of, why it's supremely valuable, and what is entailed in preserving it.